


Winging It

by Arriva



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Emotionally Distant Chell, Friendship, Gen, Hallucinations, Living Together, Mental Health Issues, Not Romance, Platonic Relationships, Portal Secret Santa, Schizophrenia, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 10:56:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17243006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arriva/pseuds/Arriva
Summary: After going through hell, Doug and Chell adjust to life outside Aperture Science.Neither one of them knows what they're doing.





	Winging It

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the Portal Secret Santa!

Chell winged it.

Yes, she was good at testing, and yes, she had the vague objective of "Get the hell out of here." But in all honesty? She just. Freaking. Winged it. Everything. From the first time she woke up and tore apart GLaDOS to the second time she woke up and tore apart GLaDOS. Featuring a bonus trip to the moon. Lucky her. The second she stepped out of that shed into the wheat field, she had no idea what she was going to do next.

So she continued to wing it.

She picked up the cube and walked. And walked. And walked some more. The wheat field gave way to a dirt road. Chell walked down the road until she ran into another human.

After everything that tried to kill her, the shock of seeing of another human being was the only thing that ever came close.

The human had a name. Rosaline. Rosaline took Chell to a town. She asked some questions about her appearance, especially those funny boots she was wearing and that weird box in her arms. Chell didn't answer. She was too tired.

This town wasn't like the towns Chell remembered. Before Aperture. Before Hell. There were a lot less people. The buildings had a rugged, dilapidated look about them. Money didn't even exist. Rosaline explained that a few centuries ago, something happened. Something that left the world a husk of what it used to be. But they were building a new world and doing a pretty good job so far.

This new world needed workers, and Chell could work. She joined a scavenging team. Her days found structure. She would pack a bag for the day, venture out into an abandoned town with her other able-bodied teammates, and collect any salvageable materials. The job was a lot like testing in some regards. She enjoyed scoping out an abandoned building and figuring out how to safely get an out-of-reach piece of scrap metal. Working with people who actually cared about her health and well being was just an added bonus.

Nobody tested her. Or punched her down an elevator shaft. She had a pretty good life. Especially considering she’d been winging it the entire time.

So when a bedraggled man wearing a lab coat with the Aperture science logo came limping towards her, she figured she'd just keep winging it.

* * *

Doug winged it.

Before the End Times, he made plans. Meticulous, step by step plans with failsafes and failsafes for the failsafes. Until everything started falling apart. His medication ran out. His plans ran out. His blood ran out. 

The time on the cryogenic storage pod ran out.

Somehow, he escaped. Although She may have let him leave. His brain wasn't really dwelling on the details as he ran up stairs and down corridors toward the emergency exit. There was a voice calling mockingly after him, telling him never to come back, they don't want mentally ill test subjects, but he's not sure if that was one his voices or not.

When he burst through the shed into the wheat field, he thought it was a test chamber. Just another twist of the knife.

A chorus of a thousand guttural voices screamed at him to run, so Doug ran. Even as every sprint sent needles of pain up his right leg. They chased him through the field like a pack of hounds. If he stopped, they would eat him alive.

He had no idea what to do but run.

The wheat field ended, but Doug's mind did not register it.

So when against all odds, he ran into the One, he figured he'd just keep winging it.

* * *

After a three day psychotic break, Doug began his adjustment to this strangely empty new world. He found work repairing electronics. Whatever catastrophe had reigned down upon the earth put a dent in the population but spared its electronics. Lucky them. 

Doug and Chell shared a house because of limited space. Or they shared a house because they shared the same past, if you want to get poetic. Chell did not want to get poetic.

Neither one of them had much experience living with a roommate, let alone being around another human. So neither one of them knew beforehand how awkward, how tedious, and how  _annoying_ living with a stranger could get.

To put it nicely, they each had some idiosyncrasies.

Chell left everything open. The cabinets, the drawers, the windows, even the front door. Doug would shut something then come back five minutes later and find it wide open once again. 

Doug never stopped talking. Mostly to himself. There were a lot of amenities in this new world, but there was no medication. One day Chell found him talking on the phone. The phone didn't work.

Like any roommates who don't know how to live together, Doug and Chell avoided each other as much as possible.

* * *

When Chell first set up his room, Doug insisted on keeping the Companion Cube. Chell raised an eyebrow but didn't object. But Cube was different. It was a burned out husk of its original self.

It no longer spoke.

With nothing to focus his voices through, Doug's mental state deteriorated. He could keep it together when he was working because he at least had something to focus on. But when he came home, it got worse.

Chell hated him. Hated him for what he made her do. She didn't say that -she didn't say _anything_ to him- but she didn't have to. Her actions spoke loud enough. She was practically gone all the time. The second she got home she took off her gear and disappeared. Where did she go? The house wasn't that big.

A new voice began to terrorize him. The voice of a woman. This voice was cold and condescending.

It presented itself first when he was eating dinner one night. Chell entered the kitchen to pour a glass of water when it said, "I hate you."

"What?" Doug raised his head. 

Chell looked behind her then back to him.

Doug looked down at his plate. "I need to stop doing that," he muttered to himself.

But he didn't stop doing that.

He knew this voice. It had to be Chell's inner thoughts. This was what she really thought of him, and now he was forced to listen. This was his punishment. 

The voice got worse.

* * *

Chell didn't say a word to Doug.

She couldn't bring herself to. Especially when he told her about his role in her defeat of GLaDOS. Every time she looked at him, all she saw was Aperture. She heard GLaDOS in her head picking her apart for being fat, adopted, murderous (she was two out of three of those things). GLaDOS was Aperture. Aperture was Doug. So being around Doug clammed her up. 

They had nothing to talk about anyways.

Only after a couple weeks of living together, Chell started to worry Doug could read her mind. She couldn't put it past Aperture Science to rewire the human brain to pick up on other people's thoughts. They were just reckless enough to try it.

It was little things at first. Doug would go, "What did you say?" when she hadn't said anything out loud.

Then he started getting more specific. One time she'd been thinking about living alone. How nice it would be. Then Doug piped up, "You don't need me!" from the kitchen. He was sitting under the table.

She'd catch him staring at her like she was about to murder him. She'd leave the room when he did that. 

Things came to a head on their one month anniversary of living together.

Chell came back from work to find a pile of flour, a bag of sugar, and six moldy strawberries arranged in a circle on the kitchen table. Flies buzzed lazily around the display.

Doug emerged from the shadows. "You never got your cake."

She didn't say anything, but somehow she said the wrong thing.

Doug eyes widened. "You hate it."

Chell opened her mouth to say something-

"YOU HATE IT!"

He pushed the table over, sending the flour all across the floor, before running into the bathroom. Chell stood frozen in the kitchen, too stunned to move. The flour on the floor looked white like Conversion Gel. She had to blast a portal over it so she could get to the surface or else she would be trapped down here  _forever_ -

Chell pressed her palms to her temples and forced herself to breathe.

They couldn't keep living like this.

Chell approached the bathroom and tried the door knob, but it was latched shut. On the other side, Doug rambled, "She's not the horrible person, I'm the horrible person- I'm a HORRIBLE PERSON-"

She banged on the door.

Doug went silent. Chell impatiently knocked again. He whispered something she couldn't hear then she heard the latch slide open. One bloodshot eye peeked out then two. The door opened fully, and Doug stood sheepishly before her.

She tilted her head, indicating him to follow her.

He timidly followed her out to the porch. It was roofed but minimally furnished; the only decoration was an old food crate. There was also a gaping hole in the left corner of the roof to boot. This worked to Chell's advantage. She got up on the crate then pulled herself up through the hole. Doug made it as far as the crate. Seeing his struggle to get up in the roof, Chell offered her hand. He was so thin. Lifting him was alarmingly easy.

"Is this where you go?" Doug looked around, taking in this hidden space the way she used to take in his hidden dens.

It was a simple setup. But the position of the roof allowed Chell to watch the sunset every day after work. That was all she wanted.

Chell sat down and patted a spot next to her. Doug sat. She pulled two dark green bottles out of her jacket and held one out to him. Her scavenger friend Owen took up fermenting beer as a hobby. He said the taste wasn't quite right, but Chell hadn't tasted the real thing in centuries so this concoction tasted real to her. 

Doug took it. He gingerly inspected the bottle and took a whiff of its contents. Chell couldn't judge him too hard. She'd be looking for traces of poison too. After several minutes of this, he finally drank the beer.

Doug took ladylike sips while Chell threw hers back like it was a race to get to the bottom.

When she had half a bottle's worth of alcohol coursing through her body, Chell said, "You're not a horrible person."

She thought Doug might faint. 

"You seem like a pretty decent person to me," she continued. Her voice was deep and quiet. "But I don't _know_ you. I don't know how to be around you."

Doug looked down at his beer. "I suppose neither of us really knows how to be around each other."

Quite the predicament they were in. Chell supposed the only solution was for them to talk it out like normal people. Defeating GLaDOS felt easier. "So... tell me something. About you."

He thought for a moment. "I miss painting. It helped clear my head."

"You're a good artist. A little creepy, but good."

He shrugged. "I take inspiration from my surroundings."

Chell smiled and took another swig of beer. She said, "I don't like being inside. It makes me nervous."

She could feel Doug's eyes on her, like he'd just found the missing piece to a puzzle. "I had no idea."

Chell shrugged but the thought of being indoors made her stomach flutter. What if GLaDOS changed her mind and took her back? What if she never saw the sun again? So Chell had to savor it every chance she could.

"I have dreams- or nightmares, rather, that she brings me back," Doug said. "I have dreams too. Believe it or not, some of my happier days _were_ spent there."

"You know the weirdest part? Sometimes I miss it." Chell stared off into the horizon, her mind deep within the bowels of Aperture Science. Did she ever really leave? On her salvage trips, every time she saw a vaguely white surface her first thought was she could blast a portal onto it. She took a contemplative swig of beer. She left Aperture, but Aperture didn't leave her. It never would. Not until she reached her deathbed.

Speaking of death, she added, "I don't miss neurotoxin."

Doug laughed nervously. "I don't either."

They sat in comfortable silence, watching the sun go down. In their normal clothes sitting on top of their normal house, Chell and Doug could pretend they were just like everyone else. Around other people, Chell almost believed it. But Aperture Science wasn't something you could wash off. Literally, if she really inhaled those asbestos.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Chell said in a small voice. "I never have."

"But that's never stopped you," Doug said. "I knew you were the only one who could beat her. But if I could have given you a choice-"

"You would have moved me me up anyways."

Doug flinched, like her words physically hurt him. His mouth moved trying to form an apology, but Chell held her hand up. "Look, I've been around some desperate... _minds_. I know desperate. You would have done anything to stop her." Doug hung his head low, regret draped over him like a shroud. Chell tentatively put her hand on his shoulder. "Hey. I'm not mad."

"Oh." He relaxed. Not much but enough. "...Good."

"I _was_ terrified," she said. "Especially when she got out the rocket."

He tugged at his collar. "I... think I installed that feature."

"I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that."

* * *

A few days later, Chell left Doug a present. She found a set of paints on one of her salvage trips. She left them on top of the Companion Cube.

A few more days later, Chell came home to a different sunset. This one stretched across the walls of her bedroom and bled into night then dawn then day then back to sunset.

"It can’t replicate the real one, I know," Doug said from the doorway. He had flecks of blue paint on his face.

Chell slowly spun, taking in how the colors seamlessly mixed together. "It's beautiful."

Their living dynamic shifted after that. No longer did they tiptoe around each other. They talked more. Sometimes about Aperture, sometimes about themselves, sometimes just about their days at work. 

Neither one of them knew what they were doing, but that was okay. They'd just keep winging it.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written Portal fic in ages so this was really fun to write.


End file.
